


By Which It Lay Against My Clavicle

by hitlikehammers



Series: The World We Forge Unending [5]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Memories, Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings, Post-Black Panther (2018), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War, Protective Bucky Barnes, Rimming, Sensuality, Steve Rogers Feels, Supersoldiers in Love, Undying Love and Stuff, Uniforms, Vulnerable Steve Rogers, so many feelings, so much love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-25 23:40:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14389536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: It's a coincidence that Bucky's new uniform—the colors, the cut, the way it stretches when he lines up a shot—it's a coincidence that it all looks so goddamnfamiliar.It'snota coincidence that Steve breaks a little for it.





	By Which It Lay Against My Clavicle

**Author's Note:**

> It was basically just too long since I wrote some feelings!porn (+porn) for these two. Also, I mean, COME ON. The UNIFORM.
> 
> As ever: if you want to start at the _very_ beginning of the tale, post _Civil War_ : [No End To This Thing](http://archiveofourown.org/series/455365)
> 
> If you want to follow some Steve/Bucky learning to feel safe(ish) and heal and be _together_ in Wakanda, pre- _Infinity War_ , as well as having deep meaningful conversations/deep meaningful snark-battles with Shuri, Nakia, and T'Challa: [The World We Forge Unending](http://archiveofourown.org/series/892896)—after this, there's one more. I'll probably be posting it on or just before the 25th, which is when I do two things: one, the less important, being evaluating what comes of me writing in the fandom after new major canon is released; and two, the more important, SEEING FUCKING INFINITY WAR.
> 
> Right. Yes. That will happen. Mmm.
> 
> Title credit [here](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46604/the-uniform-56d2268a6d887).

Steve’s got Bucky up against the wall before the door even closes behind them.

Which, _wow_ , okay: practical trial for the new impact resistant tacsuit design under maximum force? Pretty fucking amazing. Passes with flying colors.

“You fuck up Shuri’s handiwork,” Bucky pants against Steve’s mouth on his own, Steve’s hands on his chest pawing almost desperately at the fabric of his uniform but with something heavy in the touch, more than need or desire and Bucky maybe sucks Steve’s lip between his teeth to try and tease out that heavy-something; only draws away to speak again when he finds it, even though he can’t quite name what it _means_ ; 

“She’ll be pissed.”

“Ain’t gonna,” Steve gasps back, tongue tracing Bucky’s hard palate, the sides of his tongue like they hold the secrets to being or living; like the holy fucking grail itself—reaching, seeking until they’ve both lost breath and have to pull back. 

“Wouldn’t,” Steve breathes against the sensitive skin beneath the pout of Bucky’s lower lip, letting his teeth drag on the way down as deft fingers finally get the hang of unfastening Bucky’s jacket, hook by hook from his shoulders to his waist and that’s when the thing Bucky tasted starts to find a name, because Steve’s hands are skilled and sure—

But somehow, they’re still shaking.

“ _Couldn’t_ ,” Steve breathes him in as he takes Bucky’s mouth again, slipping the outer layer of Bucky’s ensemble off of his body almost delicately, reverently, and it sends a shiver up Bucky’s spine that he can’t quite justify, save for that’s just what Steve _does_ to him, and Bucky should have tried on his new fucking uniform ages ago, if this is what it gets him.

And _this_ is just the _beginning_ , for fuck’s sake.

Steve’s rucked up the undershirt and Bucky raises his arms willingly, and Steve only stops kissing him in the millisecond it takes to lift it between their lips, and Bucky’s seen, _felt_ Steve needy before, demanding before, brought high and laid low by the promise of _this_ and _them_ before, but something’s different in the positively single-minded, utterly unshakable dedication Steve is giving to stipping Bucky bare and touching every inch of him without relent, or reprieve.

Their chests are heaving so fucking hard that it’s painful when they knock on the inhale, trembling, and Bucky has a feeling that it’d _still_ hurt, even if the protection of his uniform wasn’t already on the floor.

“Buck,” Steve mouths more than he speaks, out of air, framing Bucky’s face and simply staring for a long, long time, even by their standards, even as much as time has meant and ceased to matter for them over so many years and lifetimes and losses and learning: learning to touch and breathe and find again but never to love because that was a given, that was something deeper than the bones because when Bucky was _Bucky_ again he still knew it, and they’d broken every bone in him—before he came back to himself, he recognized a thing that was beyond him, that was maybe the whole world but he was conditioned, drugged not to question and never guess or ask; but he knew that maybe, just maybe the _world_ was beyond him, hidden, and he was right.

Steve Rogers was _always_ his world. 

And Steve’s eyes, with those impossible green flecks that spread out like endless cosmos for their promise, their hint at everything here and beyond and after, somehow: they shimmer against the full-on shine of Steve’s gaze all the more, all the clearer, and linger when Steve’s hands slip down the sides of Bucky’s neck, the pulsing at his throat and his mouth sucks heady at the join of Bucky’s clavicles against every pulse to pull it, to chase it and make it abide by the rules he sets which are never more than _stay, goddamn you, stay and let me feel, let me hold, let me taste, let me know, just let me_—

And if Bucky can make Steve understand, beyond a shadow of doubt, that he never needed to _ask_ , and never needs to _try_? 

Then hell, but Bucky’ll leave this world a better man for it. He really will.

“You’re amazing, it’s,” the blunts of Steve’s front teeth don’t graze, here, more just settle so that the beat of blood rises to the waiting to space of Steve’s open mouth, welcome and wanting and so soft and giving, like proof of life is still a gift, more precious than anything else in the world and Bucky will never get used to that, he knows it, and he’s not sure he ever _wants_ to, because it makes his beating heart feel so very fucking _light_.

“I’m, you’re,” Steve’s running lips and tongue across Bucky’s clavicles, coming back to the pulse in the middle like a touchstone as he caresses back and forth, metronomic, his mouth as much a gentle touch as anything else could hope to be as Steve exhales at that center, at that perfect hollow that gets filled with the heart that Steve owns and keeps and that only knows how to _be_ in a way that matters with truth and feeling for the love of Steve, for Steve’s love in kind—impossible but undeniable—as he sighs:

“ _Buck_.”

And oh, but that voice; that voice is full of heart and soul and against Bucky’s beating blood like this, like _this_ , it’s sacred. It’s every proof of whatever God Bucky can comprehend or care to know.

“Fuck,” Bucky gasps, the way their lengths press against one another, the curve of each as they swell grazing to fill the gaps between them, intimate and so very, very _right_ before Steve starts to work his way down Bucky’s chest, presses a kiss to the right of Bucky’s sternum paired with a suck to the left, dragging his tongue to the point of a shiver across the sternum and further down to Bucky’s abs to continue the pattern until Bucky writhes just for the sensation, not even for what he knows is to come as Steve runs the bridge of his nose against the vee of Bucky groin, breathes in at the curls where Bucky’s dick strains hard like his first taste of real air lives there, his chest expanding broad against the sensitive insides of Bucky’s thighs where he can feel every shake and shiver from Steve in kind, and oh. Oh, but—

“ _Fuck_ , Steve, Jesus,” Bucky starts to babble, starts to stammer as Steve drags his tongue up one side of Bucky’s shaft and down the other, shaping his mouth around Bucky’s balls and tonguing the ridges there before he draws off with an oh-so-intentional pop that makes Bucky’s hips cant beyond his control but Steve knows him, knows this and anticipates it expertly as he cranes his neck and takes Bucky in mouth, swallowing him in one perfect go. 

“Oh god,” Bucky moans, head tossing back and throat baring and it’s only because Steve’s flexible as fuck, and his hands are so goddamn big and yet still so delicate—artist’s hands that fate and science and fucking stupidity could steal; it’s only because Steve needs enough and sometimes that’s all it takes to make the impossible happen, but Steve’s mouth is on Bucky’s length, and he’s swallowing rhythmically around the swell even as he keeps touching Bucky’s chest, keeps splaying hands across Bucky’s nipples, more pressure than play and Bucky’s going to fall apart too fast, and he’s half down Steve’s throat when Steve starts to hum, starts to massage Bucky’s pecs in the same crest and ebb and before he can even ask _harder_ , or so much as think _deeper_ , Steve’s there, and Bucky can’t take it, can’t hold back: he cries out and comes down Steve’s throat who sucks and swallows with so much _joy_ in it that it takes all the more out of Bucky as he reaches down, now—as he threads hands through Steves hair slick with sweat as Steve pants against his hips so heavy, as Bucky reels and can barely move for so many moments, so many perfect heartbeats where there’s truly nothing at all in the cosmos, save for Steve.

It’s his favorite thing, honestly; his favorite state of being. Sex or no sex: this closeness, the sheer pinpointing of what matters, the only thing that never fades, and holding to it beyond any other thing—that is what Bucky lives for, and he’ll never think twice on that truth, that single necessity for the world to spin and the sun to rise.

“Fuck,” Bucky exhales slow and shaky, when words come back to him again, voice rough as he tangles fingertips against Steve’s scalp. “Best two outta three?”

And Steve smiles against Bucky’s slick stomach, his only response to Bucky proposal, his readiness to reciprocate but then Steve’s moving palms deliberately down Bucky’s ribs as Bucky’s pulse starts to hammer again, tracing the muscles in Bucky’s thighs and lifting, kissing down from the pelvis and below Bucky’s spent cock which is already twitching, nosing his sac again before moving lower, tongue tracing the stretch of skin below and lifting Bucky’s legs up higher so that Steve’s hands can keep a thumb circling, drawing tiny spirals around Bucky’s femoral pulse as he drags the flat of his tongue along either side of Bucky cleft and raises him higher, so that only his nose needs to nudge to spread Bucky wide.

“Ste—”

The word gets stuck when Steve kisses his exposed pucker like it deserves worship, like it means something unspeakably precious just because it’s a part of Bucky’s body, and Bucky’s body holds _Bucky_ and that’s all Steve needs, it seems, some unthinkable blessing from the universe and Bucky thinks maybe, just maybe, he can believe—if not that he deserves it—than that he can accept it with both hands and be so fucking grateful there will never be words to fit it, just his unworthy hand to cradle it close to his chest and never let go. 

“Oh _fuck_ me,” Bucky gasps, even if he’s fairly sure that literal direction isn’t where they’re going, just now, even with Steve’s mouth playing with the cheeks of his ass, and yet—

And yet _this_ , if it _is_ what Bucky thinks it’s leading to, may damn well be better. 

Because Steve’s tongue against his opening laves like time means nothing—never penetrates; not because he can’t, or because they don’t, but because this is it’s own brand of climax, it’s own kind of wonderful and Bucky is shivering with it, shattering with it: with Steve’s tongue all tease and absolute precision, all promise pressed indistinguishable alongside intent and Bucky gives in to unstoppable trembling when Steve breathes against the exposed rim of him, the wet laving like a beacon for all sensation to gather and pool and unravel Bucky from his nerves to his bones to the blood in his veins and the heart in his chest and leave him a vulnerable, ephemeral soul flayed wide against wasted flesh for all that he comes undone. 

“Stevie,” Bucky gasps, writhing uncontrollably now, his lungs burning with every sacred fire known to the stars inside these moments before he spills; “god, Stevie, _god_ , I’m, I,” and he’s filled with Steve as much as if the man were about to come inside him, he’s as undeniably consumed by the man he loves as any other way could manage or make him or be:

“ _Steve_.”

And he comes hard, and Steve’s curved, bent around him just so that he can drag his lips against the ring of muscle, slick and wanting at Bucky’s entrance, and slide up swift enough to catch the last pulses of seed from Bucky’s cock and then make quick, enthusiastic work of licking him clean as Bucky reaches for him, strokes his head, his shoulders, his stubble, every inch of his face:

“I love you, fuck, I love you,” Bucky pants, first, because those are the words that mean the most and shape any others. “Gimme a sec, just gimme,” and he’s ready, he’s ready to worship Steve as much or more as he’s gotten, he _wants_ , but he needs to catch his breath where it heaves beneath Steve’s tongue, first, and he wants to frame Steve’s face and kiss him deep, but touching, fitting the curve of his palms to the curve of Steve’s jaw on either side is enough, for now, for _now_ : 

“I—”

Except Bucky knows the slide of sweat in Steve’s hair, at his temples and sometimes at the bow of his lips after they make love like this, like _this_ , but Steve’s skin is damp everywhere, too much for even _this_ much, and Bucky’s chest tightens as he reaches to cup Steve’s chin and tilt it up, to meet his eyes and know what he’d suspected but feared to confirm:

“Steve?”

The wetness is trailing from those eyes, red-rimmed, and _god_ , this isn’t, this is _never_ right.

“Baby, talk to me,” Bucky pulls Steve up so they’re chest to chest, so that when Bucky frames Steve’s face now it’s with strength and intent and their eyes aligned, even as Steve tries to avoid contact—Bucky knows him too well, though, and chases, and either he catches or Steve relents—it’s never clear—but they meet.

They _always_ meet in the end. It’s who they are.

“What is it?” Bucky asks, voice gentle, thumbs catching stray tears before they go too far as Steve looks down, fighting and embarrassment that’s more rote than anything because it’s unnecessary here, between them. 

They left that behind a long time ago.

“You,” Steve said, voice little more than a rasp that breaks Bucky’s still-pounding heart. “It’s just,” and Steve shakes his head, the way he does when he’s trying to gather his thoughts and figure out where to start—he smiles, a grimace, rueful at best before he breathes in deep.

“I watched you. All the time.”

Bucky knows how that feels, but doesn’t know how it fits.

“And then you asked _me_ if I was gonna keep the uniform, shit,” Steve’s voice breaks, and he ducks his head again but now.

Now, Bucky _does_ see where it comes together. Remembers a bar and the heat of jealousy alongside the ice of uncertainty, of a change within him that he couldn’t name and wouldn’t speak, lest he make it too real, or else tempt it to change the one thing that could _never_ change: the way he felt about the man next to him, who he’d follow to the death without question—and oh.

Oh, but Bucky hadn’t thought about the cut, or the color of his new uniform—not really. He’d never thought about those things, but now that he _does_ , and he remembers how in another lifetime, Steve had made the off-handed comment that the shade of blue suited him, batted his lashes theatrically and said it brought out Bucky’s _eyes_ , and Bucky’d shoved him playfully because whatever shade of blue it’d been was so saturated with dirt and grime that it couldn’t even _pretend_ to be a complimentary comparison, and they’d laughed just shy of the battlefield—

Shuri no doubt thought about the color, ta least in passing, not because it hearkened to anything so long ago but because maybe it _did_ complement his eyes, and she notices that sort of thing but for Steve, for _Steve_ and all the things that were and are and could have been and could have been _lost_ forever and now aren’t, and won’t _ever_ be—

Oh, _Steve_.

“But then,” Steve trips, like he always does around that day, that loss, even though he knows how it ends, where they are: he trips, and he clings to Bucky closer, and places his head on Bucky’s chest to nestle under his chin: safe. 

“Then I, you,” and Bucky wraps arms around him, and presses him close until the words can come without fear, without any kind of hurt that won’t be immediately healed because Bucky’s arms are real, and sure, and Steve can feel him breathe.

“I went to the fuckin’ Smithsonian a hundred times if I went once,” Steve confesses. “I wasn’t stupid enough not to know that I did it because it felt like it was only right, that I deserved the hurt,” Steve takes a shuddering breath; “but now, now I know it was also just the closest I could get to you.” And he nuzzles impossible closer, then, as if he can make two bodies into one and hell: if anyone in the world ever could from sheer force of will, it’d be Steve Rogers.

Bucky’s often wondered, idly—fancifully—if that’s precisely what they’ve always been in the end, anyway. 

“If I closed my eyes I could see you in it,” Steve whispers; “not just clothes hanging off a display but _you_ , and if I was lucky I could breathe you in, and pretend—”

And he does just that: he breathes in so long and deep, and Bucky strokes the line of his spine until he’s filled his lungs enough times to keep going.

“I could pretend you were there, or, fuck, _so_ much more selfish,” he kisses the center of Bucky’s chest before he settles again, ear to the skin: “that you’d ever been _mine_.”

And Bucky kisses the top of his head, because they know, now. They know they were always each other’s, and could never be anything less.

“Could never watch the video, though,” Steve murmurs; “I didn’t know how to laugh, how to smile anymore. Not like that.”

He tips his head up, not enough to meet Bucky’s eyes but enough that the angle lets their lips meet, soft and slow, sweet while tinged with salt:

“Not without _you_.”

Bucky’s heart thumps hard against his ribs, remembers fire and metal and the end of the world for the millionth time up to that moment, and a million times before this; it thumps hard against Steve’s ear as he settles back again, and Steve just holds him closer for it.

“There were so many times,” Steve breathes out; “so many times that I,” his voice breaks, and Bucky feels the well of tears again, and preses feeling and comfort and so much love into Steve’s skin with hands and lips wherever he can touch, hoping to god it does something; is something even remotely orbiting the realm of _enough_.

“Sometimes, I couldn’t hope anymore,” Steve confesses like a sin; “I wanted to just, to just,” and Bucky knows, he knows what Steve wanted and it cuts him every time he so much as _thinks_ of it, of the heart he holds most dear on ice, almost lost.

He tries never to think of it, if he can avoid it.

“It hurt so much to hope, Buck, but how could I not, even before I knew, even before I _saw_ you, how,” and Steve’s nearly begging for an answer, but Bucky doesn’t have one—he knows, like he knows Steve’s pulse and the shape of his body and the shade of his hair in the sun; he knows, if his mind had been his own, he’d have hoped for the hurting just the same.

And maybe there’s nothing else, nothing less for them than that.

“And here, now,” Steve lifts himself up a bit, and presses open palms to either side of Bucky’s sternum: “you,” and Steve’s face cumples, and his eyes squeeze shut and it forces all the water that had gathered there to fall in so much feeling, so much hurt that neither of them saw coming or thought to drain clean but that’s what they’ve learned, and that’s what it means, now, to be _them_ : purging what aches when it comes as best they know, and holding so tight.

So fucking _tight_.

“Oh,” Bucky kisses the space behind Steve’s ear, delicate and adoring and full of every reassurance he knows; “oh, babydoll.”

“You’re here,” Steve breathes, cracking but marveling and Bucky just smiles at him, small and sad for the hurting, but glowing because _yes_ :

“I am.” 

“I mean, I know,” Steve says, breathless; “Obviously I _know_ , and this doesn’t,” he gestures frantically at Bucky, toward where the clothes that held so much of the past brought to the present had to have fallen before; “it’s not, I mean—”

“Shhh,” Bucky traces Steve’s cheekbones and kisses him slow. “Shhh, I get it,” he pulls back and catches Steve’s gaze with the intention of holding and never losing grasp. “Seeing it like this,” he shakes his head and bites his lip; “it’s gotta...”

He trails off, because the past will always be there, waiting for them in odd moments, and they know that. And it’s okay, it’ll be okay, so long as _they’re_ waiting for it in turn, hand in hand.

“I love you,” Steve takes the pause to say it, to vow it, to release it as pure feeling between their bodies. “I love you so much, some days it’s the only thing I know at all and I don’t even know how to fuckin’ say it and make it mean _anything_ like...” 

“We’re here,” Bucky picks up the train of thought, knows it like his own heart in Steve’s chest: “Steve, we are _here_.”

And he lifts Steve’s chin again, and kisses his eyelids as they fall closed. 

“And god, but I love you,” Bucky exhales; “And if the end of the world’s coming for us, finally,” and it might be, for all the hundreds of times it’s tried to come before, it _might_ be now, they can feel it:

“If it’s coming, I will love you so far beyond it, because the end of this world isn’t the end of _our_ line, because we, we’re—”

“Yeah,” Steve nods, steadying and certain. “Yes, I,” and he stares for a second before he goddamn _moans_ : “ _Buck_.”

“Breathe, Stevie,” Bucky whimpers, just a little, into Steve’s hair as Steve seeks shelter once more in the crook of his neck, the heat of his chest as they shake through the memories, all the feeling and the fear and the hope they’ve held in impossible things: “My Stevie, just breathe.”

And Steve does. He does.

And Bucky’s arms around him never falter, never waver, and he doesn’t need to say it, exactly, but he needs to slay one fear, needs to answer one question unasked once and for all and so he breathes against Steve’s brow, to soothe with his lips:

“I’m right here.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com).


End file.
